Running Era The Consortium

I am pretty excited to saythat I am finally running a game of Era the Consortium. The game has sold out in store and there is a keen group that will be gathering together on Friday evening for the first game. I am nervous about this as it is a game that I love and I want to do it justice BUT I also want to do it my way.

Core rulebook cover for Era The Consortium

Most of the games of Era the Consortium that I have seen stick to the central premise of the disharmony between the rebellion, the senate and the Big 8 and that is not necessarily the path that I want to focus on. That said though the players, at character generation, made their characters along that central theme. An ex-Smertios drill sergeant, an assassin, one of the members that were trained by the drill sergeant and a farmer that had his family and livelihood damaged by Smertios. I am not sure if this is because the players think that is the only place to examine or if they want to play out in this arena.

This week, getting ready for the game, I have a character or two still to work through creation (one tonight) and the initial game to plan for. I am keeping hands off of the direction and firmly grasping the “learn by playing” style advocated in many games these days. That means I have been working building a bit of a sandbox for the players to take the helm in their characters story.

There are a lot of resources available for this style of play. The key source of sandbox material that most would leap for is Stars Without Number. This is a great game by Kevin Crawford and an obvious choice. I am going to use bits and parts of it as I do not want to override the world building that has already been done by Ed Jowett and the team, so the stuff I will be looking at is more along the lines of the more personal plots that can be created.

I will certainly be doing a play report on this great game and I hope it lives up to my expectations! Keep rolling!